Oh, wow, wow, wow!

Gee, Alex, I sure wish I could be helpful..my modern Italian is horrible, 16th C waaaay beyond me...but I'm willing to supply cheers and moral support and good voodoo if that will help you plow through it!







Leigh

Just for fun I ran the Italian through an on line translation service, Yahoo Babel Fish in fact.

Usually it's pretty fair with most languages but I have a hunch both the genre of horse terminology and the1562 dated nature of the Italian being used defeated it most humorously. Here is how Babel Fish translated the first paragraph quotes above:

"CAP. 63. Of the way to handle the horse without redine aid, & without barbazzale. Every breathes, than havrete ridutto the horse to much giustezza & obedience, than corresponds very well you to all gl'aiuti, & handlings with that gratia, prestezza, & agevolezza, than if it demands to it, facil what I made ridurlo to doubling earth you earth, to half aere, & anco perhaps high co' soccer, without aid of barbazzale, and redine, to the repeloni: & anco to running of and more determined careers you will be able to adorn, it without barbazzali yes, but not perhaps senz'aiuto of redine: if it were not the horse for aventura of schiatta, and race numida, & misilea, & that yes good training havesse havuto, than to sol the signal, not that with you could rattenere it to the verga, & to govern."

Sadly modern equivalents of equine terms apparently aren't within the capacity of Babel Fish. I think your request that someone fluent in Italian and able to translate to English is a good idea. However, I have another idea.

Alex, I think your own attempt to translate would be, given your current command of English, quite understandable. I don't think many here would have trouble understanding what you say and mean.

An afterthought: I believe that more ancient terms, no matter what subject, over time, develop more meanings than the original at it's time of common use.

And automatic translation (and some human being ones as well) might, if they do not understand the subject, pick the wrong word from a list of modern meanings of a single ancient word.

If we look at slang, for instance, colloquialisms, it becomes quickly apparent. 'Cool' for instance, used to mean of lower temperature, and that was all it meant. Now 'Cool' has two meanings at least beyond that, and in only a decade of time to change into these two.

One 'Cool' now means that something is good.

The other 'Cool' means that someone feels distant and uninterested.

That could make any translation from English, three hundred or four hundred years from now, to another language, likely laughable or unintelligible. Or both.

Unless one knows the context and the subject translation is very hard work and often wrong.

I'm a dunce in three languages, one of which I speak and write as my native language. And I still mess up badly, often. In all three.

But somehow I'm usually understood. Go ahead, give it a try.

I would love to know what is in a book on dressage from the 1500's.

Best wishes, Donald

When I used Babelfish to translate modern English "hipperian" (as you pehaps realize, horse-related language is a highly specialized, aliene language ...) into Italian, i.e. the text of the simple, plain website of Marjorie Smith, I had almost killed by laughing... ... you can't imagine how Babel translated "founder", "coffin bone", "flaring" and so on; and the whole talk was incredibly amazing.

About Italian Reinassance High School, I had a much bolder idea; I sent an email to one of the most reputated Italian experts, introducing AND forum and encouraging it to take a look and - if he has a little bit of time - to give some contribution. He contibutes with the patience of a saint into a general Italian horse related forum, and I guess that any his contribution here would be much more appreciated! Please understand me if I don't mention here his name so far, but I'll send it to Josepha.

I asked him too some good link to existing English sources about this topic. Some months ago, he mentioned an ancient English translation of Corte's book too...

This is so interesting, I can't wait to read a translation of those chapters!

It's such a coincidence that you mention this work by Corte, because exactly a year ago a handwritten 17th century manuscript in which Corte was translated in German was put up for auction in a Dutch auction house. I did leaf it through when I was there, but didn't buy it as it was very expensive and I bought two other books already. If I had known then what I read here now...

This is the description of the book by the auction house:

Sorry, Alex! - had computer trouble etc etc etc -now if I can find that translation again, I'll finally get it on here!
Rita

So, how is it going Alex?